Israel, Palestine and Indian Social Media

Image: X (formerly Twitter)

The 75-year-old Israel-Palestine dispute is once again on the boil, but this time the war hysteria is being felt almost across the globe, thanks to social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.

In India, in the 1970’s this conflict used to be confined to the ‘World’ pages of the English newspapers and was non-existent in most vernacular dailies. Later with the advent of satellite television in 1990s, we got to see footage of buildings getting reduced to rubbles on BBC World News, accompanied by a fast-paced narration by Lyse Doucet - each word going off like a bullet from a machine gun.

Those days the Indian government used to throw its weight behind the Palestinians in tune with its policy of non-alignment, while Israel was considered a pariah state. Gradually around 1980s, a section of intelligentsia and political class began to feel that it was high time we explored ties with the Jewish nation, as they argued we shared many common interests. India then formally established diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, but after ensuring that ties with the Palestine Liberation Organisation were not upset. 

For the general public, discussing politics in drawing rooms, tea shops, and paan shops – the brick-and-mortar predecessors of social media platforms, the Israel-Palestine conflict only evoked yawns and the initiator of the topic used to be dubbed as a ‘big showoff’. Many had no idea where this region was on the world map and used to dismiss this ignorance with a ‘kya-farak-padta-hai’ shrug.

Even when social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook became household names in the first decade of this millennium, the Israel-Palestine wars didn’t evoke much traction among Indian users. 

However, Israel was fondly remembered by a section of the Indian commentariat whenever Delhi, Mumbai, or Kashmir used to get rocked by terror attacks. Israel's success in freeing passengers and crew from a hijacked Air France aircraft at Entebbe airport in Uganda in 1976 had won them legendary status. These analysts looked upon the Jewish nation as a role model and wanted India to show the same ruthlessness while dealing with Pakistan-trained terrorists. The worldwide rise in Islamophobia after the 9/11 terror attacks in the US also added heft to this school of thought.

On the other hand, in New India secularism has become a dirty word and the Indian Muslim is increasingly being seen as the other. Frequent lynching, hate speeches, and other hate crimes against Muslims for nearly a decade have helped bolster this narrative. Using this corollary, anyone attacking Muslims across the globe gets instant support from Hindutva zealots. Hence, the current Israel-Palestinian war is evoking a very strident reaction, and the world is getting a taste of the toxic polarization India is currently afflicted with.

On October 7, the moment the Palestinian extremist group Hamas breached the heavily guarded Israeli border to carry out attacks on residences and military installations, and rained missiles on some Israeli towns, #IStandWithIsrael began trending on Indian Twitter. Soon there was a rash of similar-sounding hashtags and in some cases, even Israel was misspelled as ‘Isreal’. 

A number of resident welfare uncles, who bombard us with ‘good morning’ messages, turned into ‘military experts’ overnight. They expressed their choicest outrage against Hamas but were salivating over the prospects of massive air raids Israelis were planning to carry out on Gaza in retaliation. Borrowing a cricket analogy, a Twitter user said Hamas had done with its batting and now see what Israel does. Memes showing Hamas in poor light were widely circulated.

As the frenzy spread, we had random guys from Rajkot to Rae Bareli offering themselves to fight for Israel. This reached such a feverish pitch that the Israeli ambassador in India, Naor Gilon, had to issue a statement, “Israel never asked anyone to come and fight for us. We fight our own fights.”

All the prominent influencers of the right-wing social media ecosystem in India began rooting for Israel and wanted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to wipe out Hamas by flattening Gaza. All this vociferous posturing was emanating from the bedrock of rabid hatred towards fellow Muslims.

There is an old adage (though who actually said it is disputed), “The first casualty of war is the truth.” This war too helped rumour mills work overtime with social media proving to be a force multiplier. 

One of them was that Hamas had beheaded 40 babies in a hospital after entering Israel. The report was based on hearsay and travelled across the globe. It gained so much credence that US President Joe Biden issued a statement condemning the act. Later it turned out that the report had no basis, and the White House had to ‘walk back’ on its earlier statement.

The trouble is that by the time these lies and half-baked reports get exposed, they have already travelled too far. It gets shared by thousands of social media users, and many don’t even get to know about the clarification that comes much later. 

Hamas has been attacking Israeli positions in the past but never attained a success of this scale. For the dominant Western media, Hamas action became the casus belli, as if this was the first stone cast in this dispute, while they conveniently overlooked Israel’s atrocities on Palestinians that date back many decades. Every anchor in prominent TV channels across the Western world wanted the panelists to first condemn the October 7 Hamas attack and then get on with Israeli atrocities.

No Western leader issues a statement on this issue without including the line, “Israel has the right to defend itself.” Hence, the oppressor gets a blank cheque, while the oppressed need to be the epitome of poise and grace or be dubbed as a terrorist.

Coming to Indian mainstream media, a major chunk of which has been reduced to government mouthpieces over the last decade, the Hamas attack provided a golden opportunity to divert attention from a civil war-like situation prevailing in Manipur state. 

For Indian TV news channels, many of whom fit Arundhati Roy’s description of ‘Fox News on steroids’, this war provided fresh ammunition for its daily edition of notoriously toxic debates. Talking heads with very extreme views were invited and they all still continue to call for the annihilation of Gaza to teach Hamas a lesson. 

Interestingly, some of these channels have flown in their top correspondents to Tel Aviv, and they are reporting from the relatively safe confines of Israeli towns with none venturing into Gaza. They are also unable to see the widespread protests on Israeli streets calling for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ouster. Amid all this turmoil, ANI even managed to find an Indian woman residing in Israel, who was willing to sing paeans of Narendra Modi!

It may be recalled that none of these channels ever bothered to send even a single reporter to Manipur where the ethnic conflict rages on even to this day.

While most of the Israeli media is pulling no punches and asking the Netanyahu government tough questions regarding Israeli security failure on October 7, for Indian reporters and Twitter users he continues to be a hero. The same template is expected to continue as Israeli forces get ready for ground assaults on Gaza.

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Caste, Racism and the Common Threads

Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste (The Lies That Divide Us) has been on my reading list for long. Though I bought it a couple of months ago, only recently I decided to take the plunge into this voluminous book. It delves deep into the race problem in the United States and draws parallels with the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany and the long-standing caste system in India. 

Wilkerson, a New York Times veteran turned academic, feels the term racism is insufficient to encapsulate the systemic oppression of African American people in the US and prefers to use the term ‘caste’, which in Indian society is used to describe a person’s social standing in the well-demarcated hierarchy. 

The term Caste originated from the Portuguese word Casta, meaning race or breed, and it was coined by Portuguese traders. While doing business with their Indian counterparts, these traders observed some well demarcated divisions within Indian society.

Caste has been present in the Indian subcontinent for over a millennium, while the first batch of slaves from Africa came to America around 400 years ago.

The first time I heard the term slavery was when I had to study a small portion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in school. The chapter described some of the sub-human living conditions of slaves in the US in the 18th century. 

Ever since I have been hearing intermittently about the friction between the African Americans and the whites in the US. They become a talking point when there is a Rodney King or George Floyd-type incident of police high-handedness towards African American youths, resulting in widespread protests. Even the term ‘African American’ is a refined and politically correct avatar of Negro or black that was freely used in the 1970s and 80s. 

Caste in India

In India, your status in society gets decided by the accident of birth with Brahmins figuring at the top of the pecking order, followed by Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, and a vast underclass - collectively called Dalits or Bahujans or outcastes. The widespread practice of marrying only within one’s own caste has kept this water-tight segregation alive for centuries. 

This hierarchical order, also known as Brahminical order, is well entrenched with each caste showing deference to those above them and riding roughshod over the less fortunate. The father of the Indian constitution and a Dalit himself, B R Ambedkar, had succinctly termed it as ‘graded inequality’.

Even religions like Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism that profess to be opposed to casteism tend to acknowledge this Brahminical order as a fait accompli of Indian society. In fact, some sects like Syrian Christians in Kerala take pride in their professed Brahmin ancestry before they embraced Christianity.

Racism in the US

In the US, when the founding fathers drafted the Constitution, the welfare of the blacks was not there in their minds. Slavery was considered an accepted practice and a vital element in keeping the US farm sector running on near-zero wage bills.

Even the White House had a slave quarter. The third president Thomas Jefferson, who had authored the epoch-making Declaration of Independence, had fathered six children from one of his slaves.

Though Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in 1865, after a four-year-long civil war, the subsequent rulers did precious little to help the newly freed slaves join the mainstream.

On the contrary, the southern states that had fought against the abolition of slavery during the Civil War introduced the Jim Crow laws (Jim Crow being a pejorative term for an African American). These laws supported racial segregation in public places and proposed a host of other discriminatory measures aimed at keeping the African American community on the fringes of society. 

‘Negroes and dogs not allowed’ boards were proudly flaunted in front of shops and restaurants. Even where they were allowed, blacks were served only after all the white customers had been attended to. Public buildings and movie halls in some towns had separate entrances for blacks and whites, and hospitals had separate wards for black patients. In the armed forces, they had separate barracks for white and black soldiers.

It is said that when World War II was drawing to a close, a school in Columbus, Ohio, held an essay contest with the topic “What to do with Hitler after the war.” An African American girl wrote just one sentence: “Put him in a black skin and let him live the rest of life in America.” The Jim Crow laws remained for around a hundred years in the southern states and were repealed during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. 

Pat from the Nazis

While studying ways and means to prosecute the Jewish community and other minorities, the Nazis were quite impressed by the way the United States had sustained its white supremacy by treating African Americans and other minorities as second-class citizens. 

They were particularly impressed by American eugenicist Madison Grant who firmly believed in Aryan supremacy and was considered close to US Presidents Herbert Hoover and Theodore Roosevelt. Grant had persuaded the US administration in the 1920s to tighten laws related to immigration and interracial marriages. He believed that ‘inferior stocks’ should be sterilized and quarantined in order to get them eliminated. His book ‘The Passage of a Great Race’ advocated ‘cleansing’ the gene pool and had a special place in Adolf Hitler’s library.

The common thread among the ruling class and elites of the US, India, and Germany was the zeal to maintain the purity of the bloodline. In the three countries, there were legal and societal curbs on interracial marriages. 

Another commonality was the ‘sanctity’ in the usage of water. In the US, offices had separate water fountains for white and black employees, and many beaches were out of bounds for African Americans. In India, the Dalits and other lower castes too faced similar restrictions and the Nazi Germany also barred Jews from using many beaches. 

Race Purity

Among the whites, anyone not having Anglo-Saxon blood was considered ‘polluted’. People from other European countries such as Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, and others fell into this category. In fact, Benjamin Franklin, another luminary of the American War of Independence, was concerned about the rising influx of German immigrants to Pennsylvania State and feared that they may ‘Germanize’ the state by imposing their language and culture. 

However despite all these intra-continental prejudices, the European immigrants always enjoyed a privileged status in the US as regardless of their country of origin or vocation, they were slotted in the ‘white’ category once they entered America. Whereas people migrating from Asia, Africa or South America were classified as ‘coloured’ or ‘blacks’. And however successful they are in their careers or businesses they are seen through the lens of their race.

By the 1880s the US policymakers started getting worried that the increased immigration might upset the white supremacy and began imposing curbs, especially those from the non-European countries. The axe first fell on the Chinese in 1882 and this tightening of curbs continued until the 1960s.

Trump Legacy

Donald Trump came to power by tapping the insecurities of white voters. He capitalized on their fears that whites would turn into a minority sometime in the 2040s. His presidency polarized the US society and opened the old wounds of the Civil War era. 

The neo-Confederates, who drew inspiration from the Confederacy movement that fought against the abolition of slavery, started gaining prominence in some of the southern states. Though the Confederacy movement was defeated and slavery was abolished, they remained a force in southern states and subsequent governments did little to keep them in check. The neo-Confederates saw the advent of Trump in the White House as an act of reclaiming their 'glorious past' and this further strained the tenuous racial equation in many cities, leading to violent clashes.

Personal Anecdotes

Wilkerson recounts a few personal anecdotes to highlight the subtle racism in the present-day US. As she lives in a predominantly white neighbourhood, salesmen coming to her house assume she is the housemaid and ask her to call the ‘madam’! She also recalls an unsavoury incident at a restaurant along with her white host. 

She also narrates an interesting nugget regarding Ambedkar. She happened to attend a seminar on casteism organized by a US-based Indian group. The organizers presented her with a small bronze bust of Ambedkar.

When she was in the airport undergoing a security check, the African American security officer spotted it and grew suspicious. He got it closely checked and asked, “Who is this?” Wilkerson thought telling him about Ambedkar would be a laborious process. So she told him: “This is Martin Luther King of India.” 

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

Oppenheimer Omnibus

There is now a ‘mushroom cloud’ of opinions about Christopher Nolan’s latest movie Oppenheimer. While the overall opinions are positive, some do pick Nolan for certain historical omissions. The most glaring miss was his soft pedalling of the devastation Japan faced after the dropping of nuclear bombs, and the US administration’s heavy-handedness in evicting the Hispanic residents at the nuclear bomb test site at Los Alamos.

Before the promos were out, I had vaguely heard of Robert J Oppenheimer as the nuclear scientist who led Project Manhattan – the United States' plan to build a nuclear bomb during the Second World War. In India, he was also remembered for quoting a line from Bhagavad Gita, “Now I become death, the destroyer of worlds,” after the bomb was successfully tested.

Thanks to a friend’s prodding, I landed at a city multiplex on the first day of the movie’s screening. The hall was packed and we managed to get tickets only in one of the front rows - third from the screen. The hall was milling with young college-going and 20-something crowd, probably Nolan fans mesmerized by his Dark Knight and Inception. 

It made me wonder how they are going to take their favourite director’s attempt at a three-hour-long biopic about a scientist - which totally eliminates any scope for high-voltage action or special effects. Moreover, I wondered how many of these students and young professionals, with their brains hardwired to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), will feel excited about a period drama steeped in politics and history. 

I had come for the movie with a near-clean slate. I didn’t closely read any newspaper reviews. The news item of lead actor Cillian Murphy’s interest in Bhagavad Gita had evoked some social media buzz, especially among the bhakt crowd. 

But their euphoria of an Indian scripture being validated by a Hollywood star soon turned into anger after the movie was released. To their chagrin, the famous scientist is shown reading the holy book during a sex scene. This is now snowballing into a major controversy with the latest reports of Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur wading into it. He has censured the censor board for letting this objectionable scene past their scissors. 

There are even calls that Nolan should drop this scene worldwide. This controversy is likely to linger on for some time as the hyper-nationalist Indian diaspora is expected to keep it on the boil. I recall how Time magazine columnist Joel Stein was forced to apologise in 2010 after he wrote a humour piece on how the town of Edison in New Jersey state changed after being swamped by Indian immigrants. 

As I said earlier, my knowledge of Oppenheimer was sketchy. So I had no idea that this ‘father of the nuclear bomb’ too was caught up in the maelstrom of McCarthy's witch hunt for communists and socialists in the 1950s. So far, I had thought that only politicians, film artistes and writers were hauled up. One of the most notable ones was Charlie Chaplin.

During the early days of the cold war, the US policymakers thought that socialism was more dangerous than fascism. They made all-out efforts to weed out or blacklist people they thought were sympathetic to these causes from the federal administration, universities, and the film industry.

Unlike the stereotype of ‘apolitical’ scientists steeped in lab research, Oppenheimer was active politically, though in a prudent manner - he baulked from becoming a card-carrying Communist. But he made contributions to socialists and Communists fighting General Franco during the Spanish civil war, wanted scientists and academics to form unions, and was in love with a card-carrying Communist woman academic. 

All this did not affect him when he got down to setting up a nuclear testing facility in a remote desert land in Los Alamos and wooing top scientists in the country to work on the project. Once the weapon got successfully tested he became a national hero. 

But his ties with the Communists came back to bite after the world came to be divided into two camps – the US-led Western bloc (comprising capitalist countries) and the then USSR-led Eastern bloc (communist countries) after World War II. His opposition to the hydrogen bomb and fear of an arms race also landed him in the bad books of the US administration. 

As for characterization, Murphy with his probing eyes gets into the skin of Oppenheimer, who graduates from being a precocious science student fiddling at a lab in Cambridge, to a more confident theoretical physicist. During Project Manhattan, he acquires the swagger of a confident entrepreneur trying to sell the idea of the atomic bomb to fellow scientists. After the devastation caused by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the unravelling begins. He is shattered and vulnerable for the rest of his life.

I just could not make out Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr. Nolan showed them in an entirely different light. Damon has traded his boyish looks to be a Lieutenant General who was the military face of Project Manhattan. Downey Jr, famous for his Iron Man roles, plays a more complex role as a government official who tries to pin down Oppenheimer with his previous links with socialism and communism after World War II when McCarthyism took over.

It is to the credit of Nolan that he keeps viewers engaged for three long hours. It is no mean feat to keep the Instagram Reels generation, with low attention spans, engaged for such a long time. 

Tailpiece: Almost throughout the movie Oppenheimer has a cigarette dangling on his lips, or someone else is smoking. Hence we had the ‘smoking kills’ sign as a permanent fixture on the right corner of the screen. Sounded a bit rich as the movie itself is about the atomic bomb and killing people in thousands!

Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes

A Picture Worth 1000 Words

This could well be one of those epoch-making images that history throws up once in a while, especially during crisis situations such as war, calamities, or rebellions. These images stand out from the routine ones churned out by photojournalists and others to describe the situation of that time.

They capture the joy, pain, hope, and despair of the people who are caught in that particular crisis. They stand the test of time and have a better recall value than others.

This image released by the US air force is part of a video that shows Afghans swarming the Kabul airport tarmac as a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III tries to take off.

The Taliban’s capture of Kabul has evoked despair among the populace as the horrors of their earlier rule two decades ago is still fresh in their minds. Hence they desperately want to get out of the country whatever it takes. This particular image vividly captures that desperation.

As the US air force aircraft rolled down the tarmac of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, hundreds of people ran alongside the plane while some even gained a foothold on its undercarriage. It almost resembled the people clinging on to the windows and roofs of a suburban train in Mumbai - but in this case, death was a certainty.

US air force officials later said the crew decided to “depart the airfield as quickly as possible” that day because of the deteriorating security situation. Crushed human remains were found inside the wheel well after the transport plane landed in Qatar. Media reports later said almost all of them fell to their deaths in and around Kabul city. 

This image is in league with that of the anonymous ‘tank man’ who stands defiantly as armoured carriers rolled into Beijing before the Tiananmen Square massacre of agitating students in 1989.

Or the image of a young Vietnamese girl running down a road naked along with others following a napalm attack during the infamous Vietnam war. Or moving further down the history, the photo of a US sailor kissing a woman in a nurse’s uniform in Times Square on Aug. 14, 1945. The picture evoked relief and euphoria marking the end of the horrific World War II.

These photos were captured on the spur of the moment, like any other image, by nimble-fingered photographers, but they soon developed a life of their own and the rest is history.

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Biplab Deb Uninterrupted

When Tripura voters inked their index fingers on February 18 to elect their public representatives, little did they know they were in for exciting times.

Decades of Marxist rule had made them averse to continuity and they were sick and tired of their fellow countrymen post pictures on social media of their chief minister Manik Sarkar as 'poorest CM' and patronisingly talk about his austere, Gandhian ways.

It was like having to make do with a daily 'healthy' diet of rice gruel or oats, while the rich aroma of biryani wafted into their homes from neighbourhood during lunch and dinner times.

It was becoming a bit too jarring and they thought they would rather have a more Epicurean leader who would bring 'development' to their sedate and dour existence. 

Although Tripura has a high literacy rate, the state lacks job opportunities and hence the problem of unemployment is very high. Moreover for the educated class there are only government jobs to aspire for, as there is little private investment. 

The images they used to see on television screens of technological strides made in distant metros of Delhi, Bangalore or Mumbai, symbolised by spanking steel and glass structures housing technology parks and shopping malls, was too alluring.

Hence when Prime Minister came calling and during his campaign tour dangled a new acronym 'Hira' - "H for highway, I for Internet way, R for roadways and A for airways", many began daydreaming that an El Dorado was around the corner.

Few days later the verdict came. And needless to say it was stunning. It was as Oscar Wilde once said "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

The early days were quite heady. The symbols of previous regime, the statues of Karl Marx and other Communist vestiges were pulled down with gusto.

A tall, youthful looking chief minister Biplab Deb, the youngest one in the state, with a sartorial taste that would make costume designer of Dharma productions proud, was sworn in.

This former gym instructor was always seen in his customary ethnic chic wedding guest attire, right up to dupatta. He gave the impression that at any moment he may shake a leg or two to a wedding song we see in Sooraj Barjatya or Karan Johar films.

It was a breath of fresh air for Tripura voters, especially the young ones, who were tired of chief ministers who looked like ancient pensioners and failed in providing them jobs.

True to his flamboyant style within one month of swearing-in he made a blockbuster opening.

He claimed that internet and satellite communication existed in the days of Mahabharata. "Internet and satellite system had existed during the lakhs of years ago. How could Dhritarashtra see through Sanjay's eyes? There was technology available at that time... Internet was there, satellite communication was there."

To be fair this is not the first time a politician has tried to airbrush our ancient puranas and myths to make them look advanced and tech savvy. This trend of waxing eloquent about our glorious past, which was later 'ruined' by Muslim and British invaders, has always been there among the political and intellectual class. But of late it has seen a spike with leaders of Biplab's own party in the forefront.

They have been spinning yarns regarding ancient India's technological strides in areas such as aviation and plastic surgery. However this was probably the first time someone has credited our ancestors with a large footprint in digital technology.

Barely had the social media and twitterati done with cracking up over Deb's remarks, through memes and one-liners, he fired his next salvo. This of course revealed his exclusivist mindset honed up during his long drawn association with RSS.

He remarked that Diana Hayden is not an Indian beauty, while Aishwarya Rai is, thereby revealing his aversion for brown skin and minorities. This ruffled many feathers among the feminist and anti-fairness cream activists.

Next he waded into another controversy while commenting on the vexing problem of high number of educated unemployed, who had in fact rallied behind his party during elections.

His first remark sounded like a trite PJ. What should civil engineers do? Join the civil services. Mechanical engineers do not fit the bill and hence should not venture into it.

At a different event he chided the youth for running after politicians to get government jobs and advised them to seek self-employment instead. Nothing wrong in that, but the choices he offered made many cringe – rear cows or sell paan.

Barring his own party men, who were left red faced and seething, his remarks vigorously tickled social media’s funny bone.

Then came the parting shot against those trying to attack his government. "When I was young... people used to say if it's government property, you can do anything you want with it... just as you do to a lauki. A vegetable seller brings fresh lauki to the bazaar at 8 am. By 9 am that lauki gathers so many nail marks, it cannot be sold. You either have to feed it to a cow at the bazaar or take it back home. My government cannot be like that, no one can leave nail marks on it. Whoever leaves nail marks, their nails will be cut," he said.

For Tripura residents it's truly nail biting days ahead, wondering where next will their boisterous leader train his loose cannon.

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A Note From Planet of The Apes

To my fellow apes,

Just got to know that some guy in India said Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution of man was “scientifically wrong” because nobody has seen an “ape turning into a man". This has led to lots of amusement among the humans of India, many are grinning like hyenas.

But for apes like us it offers a glimmer of hope. Finally we can get rid of these centuries old chains of so called association with humans. 

Ever since that long bearded bloke Darwin came to the scene we apes have been linked to hideous humans, the pompous termites working overtime to destroy the environment and hasten doomsday. They are never in harmony with nature. Never seen such confused and fun averse creatures!

His book ‘The Descent of Man’, published in 1871, claims that we and the humans have common ancestors. It is considered path breaking by the humans, but it actually led to our free fall. Ever since we have been smarting under the stigma of being associated with these wretched and born greedy creatures.

Initially there was opposition to the book and it enjoyed little credence among humans, thanks to the stranglehold of human centric obsession - religion. Then gradually all that outrage died out and the book almost became sacrosanct.

Every year these humans have been nibbling away the forest and disembowelling our mother earth to satiate their greed and the whole of animal and plant kingdom have been suffering.

These merciless marauders have taken away most of our habitats and we have been literally cornered and forced to make do with our shrunken habitats. Like ocean waves there seems to be no end to their greed and the threat posed by these malicious marauders keeps getting renewed from time to time.

Hence any claim disassociating us from these despicably evil two-legged monsters is welcome.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Return of The Prodigal

First it was the hoardings, then the front page advertisements in newspapers of a well known bespectacled and smug face. For the first time I noticed he has a mole on his forehead. 

After a hiatus of six months, post-truth icon Arnab Goswami was coming back to TV screens, and his fans began feeling giddy and delirious. With their echo chamber bereft of its favourite nightingale, they were battling cold turkey conditions all these months.

After all how long can one make do with cheap imitations like Gaurav Sawant! Even during his earnest display of machismo (being clad in battle fatigues at newsroom) Gaurav seemed like Ben Stiller trying to pass off as Rambo Sylvester Stallone. 

Now the fans wanted to make up for the lost opportunities of the inimitable Arnab fix that transports them to a feel good delirium. His force multiplier vocal cords, which he uses to decimate Pakistani panelists, were sorely missed while the country was going through tumultuous events such as surgical strikes, demonetisation and UP elections.

As the launch date of the Republic TV channel approached the hype was gradually built up. His fans regrouped under various hashtag battle formation across all social media platforms, ready to blow Republic's trumpet and pounce on detractors in a manner which would make even Goebbels blush.

True to the hype he began from where he left off. For fans and worshippers their echo chamber was once again vibrant with the hyper-ventilating jingoism they were addicted to. The template continues to be same: Find an 'other' and attack him or her in a pack, never allow them to put their views across. What amazes me is how some of the panellists, especially the Pakistanis, even agree to appear for the show considering its pointlessness.

So finally it is achche din for the fans, with onerous tasks like trolling the detractors (go wild on keyboards, issue murder and rape threats) and play cheerleader to their beloved anchor. For them he remains the minstrel of utmost happiness!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Endless Blood-letting in July

July has turned out to be the cruellest month so far this year with a rash of terror attacks around the world, especially Europe. Some of them displayed sickening levels of barbarity, especially the one at an upscale cafe in Bangladesh got attacked on July 1.

Though in terms of casualties, 29 deaths, it may not be much compared with say Iraq, Syria or Yemen, which records ten times that much every month. However the raw savagery unleashed by the assailants in Bangladesh made a chilling read.

They were 19-20 year olds, just out of some top notch schools in Bangladesh. But their savagery was reminiscent of medieval era warriors. Though they were carrying guns, machete was their favourite weapon and beheading, lynching their preferred mode to get rid of victims. The guns were only meant to be used when confronted with security forces.

In Bangladesh it looks like lynching is a very prevalent mode used by extremists. It has been used numerous times to kill bloggers, priests and just about anyone opposed to their ideologies or religious beliefs. Though guns provide the luxury of distance while eliminating people, these extremists seem to be hankering after greater sadistic pleasure of being in close proximity to their victims, while the latter meet with their blood spattered end.

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The second cruellest attack happened in Nice in France on July 14. It came as a rude awakening to the French security establishment, which was breathing easy after an incident-free Euro cup soccer. Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a driver of Tunisian origin, turned an innocuous looking truck into a killing machine.

It ploughed through a crowd, which had gathered to watch the Bastille Day fireworks, for nearly two kilometres and killed 84 people. Here too guns played a secondary role, while the 19-ton vehicle trampled the victims under its wheels. 

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Lastly there are forgotten people residing in conflict zones such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. For the world community they are not even significant enough to be a statistic as hundreds die on a daily basis. Iraq and Syria are sometimes lucky enough to get a passing mention when some 50 plus people get killed in a bomb blast or when the problem of refugee influx to Europe is discussed. 

But the Yemenis are the proverbial children of lesser god. This poorest country in Arab world gets pounded by fighter jets from regional satraps such as Saudi Arabia and UAE with impunity for months together and the rest of the world does not even bat an eyelid.

Yemeni lives matter! Anyone?

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

For Whom The Bell Trolls

Fresh from a thumping win in the 2014 general elections and on his maiden visit to the US after becoming Prime Minister, Narendra Modi suffered a Freudian slip while regaling the fawning NRI audience at Madison Square. He referred to fellow Gujarati Mahatma Gandhi as 'Mohanlal' Karamchand Gandhi. Hailing from an organisation not favourably disposed towards Mahatma's brand of politics, it was quite understandable, even though 'Mohandas' is neither difficult to recall nor a tongue twister.

His 'Mohanlal' gaffe didn’t create much of a flutter elsewhere, but it did ring a bell and drew light hearted titters in the deep south of the Vindhyas, where an actor by that name enjoys super star status and even has a fans' association. Mohanlal carries his plus size frame with rare agility and  elan. And his dialogue delivery, especially the punch lines, are always lustily lapped up by his first-day-first-show fans.

Now two years down the line Modi's path once again crossed with Mohanlal and it is anything but light hearted.  This time it was one of those one-liners, of nearly two-decades vintage, that has morphed into a hashtag #pomonemodi and set off a Twitter-tsunami.

It looked more like a poetic justice. Because it is the Hindutva keypad warriors who were notorious for running down their opponents by posting nasty comments and trolling was considered their forte. But now Modi was getting a taste of his own medicine.

During his whistle stop tour of poll-bound Kerala, he remarked that the condition of Adivasis in Kerala was akin to that of people in Somalia. This badly ruffled the Malayali ego, which takes pride in its enviable Human Development Index, which is on par with Scandinavian countries.

However, it needs to be pointed out that the HDI among Adivasis in Kerala is not as impressive as its general population and leaves a lot to be desired. The governmental apathy and agricultural distress at the state's tribal belts have taken a heavy toll on their well being. But even then they are much better off than Adivasis in other states.

Modi's remark sparked off an unprecedented mobilisation of Malayalees on Twitter. Even those who had settled down elsewhere in the country or abroad decades ago, used to berate Mallu accent and were dismissive about the state in general, they too got galvanised to join the Twitter hashtag bandwagon and fire 140-character salvos at Modi.

The type of humour ranged from light hearted sarcasm, often accompanied by memes; some disputed Modi's claim using graphics, but some even got into the avoidable territory of racism, making fun of dark skin of Africans.

The popularity of this hashtag led to a counter hashtag #pomonechandi but with limited success, and a wag exhorted them to try something more original "like #solargirigiri or some such thing" to highlight the infamous solar scam for which the current Oommen Chandy government is drawing lot of flak.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Timeless Appeal of Salim Langde Par Mat Ro

The other day I was watching Saeed Akhtar Mirza's Salim Langde Par Mat Ro on YouTube. The movie was released in 1989, but the plot seemed eerily relevant to the present times of chest thumping and polarising debates on nationalism and the overwhelming tendency to wear patriotism on one's sleeve. 

Set in the backdrop of Bhiwandi riots in 1984 (a precursor to much more horrific 1992-93 Mumbai riots) the movie is about the life in a predominantly Muslim mohalla in central Bombay (as it was known then) or the mill districts (which have now gentrified into high street malls and corporate offices).

In the movie some social workers screen a documentary in that mohalla about the horrors of Bhiwandi riots and explain to them the perils to falling prey to the guile of communal forces. It strikes a chord among the local populace and stirs up a debate on communalism.

During one such discussion at a tea shop, owned by one Rahaman bhai (Ajit Vachani), Lala  (Achyut Potdar), a Hindu businessman cum wheeler dealer, says the documentary was all bakwas and misleading propaganda to incite people. He then goes on to blame the British for the Hindu-Muslim divide.

Vilasbhai (Ashok Banthia) a local thug interjects 'the Brits left long ago, but now why this strife'. To which the Lala replies that it is because some people are not patriotic enough. Then he points to the paanwala, sitting in a kiosk next to the tea shop. The bashful paanwala modestly replies that he is too busy making both ends meet to think of deshbhakti.

Just then Rahman bhai asks Lala, 'Are you patriotic?'. 'Of course' replies Lala proudly. Then Rahman bhai asks, "How? By selling smuggled goods, selling essential commodities in black market, pushing gullible women into flesh trade." The Lala dismissively laughs an says, "What Rahaman bhai tum bhi na."

Just then Vilasbhai interjects, "what Rahman Bhai said was correct". Then what follows is his tongue-in-cheek punchline, "Iss mulk mein desh bhakton ki lambi line lagi hai, kaahe to traffic jam karta hai" (In this country there is a long line of people claiming to be patriots, why are you creating a traffic jam!). 

Thus Mirza in this short clip very tellingly exposes the hollowness of the pseudo patriotism practised by Lala and his ilk in the society, which of late seems to be very much on the rise and is very much in your face - right from TV studios to cricket stadiums. It is a pity that he no longer makes such films.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Short And Simple Annals of The Poor

With almost every media house involved in the rat race for advertising revenue and TRP ratings, some publications like Fountain Ink and Caravan buck the trend by venturing into territories where the mainstream media may either fear to tread or think it’s way too ‘down market’, hence not worth the trouble.

Every publication and its editor these days live under the hallucination that their readers are high net worth individuals who drive to work in swanky cars, have high purchasing capacity and spend vacations in exotic locales around the globe.

It is another matter that this particular class, whom they are too eager to court, are too busy and don’t care to read anything other than what appears on their smartphone screens! Moreover if they want to buy a car or an expensive gadget, poring newspapers and magazines would be the last thing that would come to their minds.

The recent cover story in Caravan about an ayah who, without her knowledge, became a millionaire on paper and was used as a cover by her employer to hide his financial chicanery is something no mainstream publication would suffer the toil of touching even with a barge pole, let alone follow it up.

As part of Post 9/11 investigations the US investigators stumbled upon the infamous insider trading scandal involving Raj Rajarathnam, CEO of hedge fund company Galleon and Rajat Gupta former global head of McKinsey. As Rajat Gupta was the darling of corporate India, it did evoke some interest in the country’s pink press and his later incarceration was mourned by many in the India Inc.

The above said maid, Manju Das, was listed as an investor in Galleon, with “Anil Kumar” (a McKinsey employee) as her contact person.

After a prolonged investigation into the case, the arrests happened in 2009. Though Rajarathnam and Gupta had to undergo jail terms, Kumar got off lightly, because he had ‘cooperated’ and helped the authorities unearth crucial details. He had to undergo a probation period of two years and forfeit the $2.26 million that was calculated to be his illicit gain.

It was found that the illegal payments Kumar got from Rajarathnam were fraudulently hidden from his employers and the government, and routed to tax havens in South America (resident or non-resident Indian, money laundering runs in our blood!). To carry out this embezzlement Kumar hijacked Manju Das’s identity, while she was working as a live-in maid with the family in California. However, after Kumar’s arrest her employment was terminated and she was sent back to India.

Under the shadow of this high profile case, this particular sub-plot involving exploitation of an underclass woman got totally eclipsed. Moreover Das was paid a measly salary, way below the US minimum wages and many other norms for US maids were violated.

Ironically the US prosecutor for hedge fund scam happened to the Preet Behrara, who later took on Indian diplomat Devyani Khobargade for not paying minimum wages to her maid. Somehow he too failed to smell the rat in this case.

After Das reached India, Kumar saw to it that her passport and other travel papers were taken away by his assistant. When pointed out to her that it was a criminal offence for anyone to hold on to her passport, she wryly said she no longer needed it. For her the daily grind for rozi roti and old age itself was too daunting to worry about such legal trifles. 

As I said earlier no other publication picked up the story. Maybe the nation does not want an answer to such unsettling questions!!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Haves and Have-nots

Rohith Vemula's suicide is turning out to be the Rajeev Goswami moment for the Dalit students. The analogy may sound sacrilegious as Rohith and Rajeev espoused diametrically opposite causes, however, they have one thing in common. They both ceased being mere statistic and found their way to the viewfinder of national media and had long shelf lives in public discourse.

For the sake of post-Mandal generation a quick recap. The graphic picture of Rajeev Goswami, a Delhi University student, committing self immolation during an anti-Mandal rally in Delhi in 1990 made him the face of anti-quota agitation.

Back in 1990s the mass media mainly consisted of newspapers and magazines; 24/7 news channels was still few years away, and internet, video platforms like Youtube were still in the realm of science fiction.

Barring some niche publications such as Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) and Mainstream all the popular newspapers and magazines came down heavily against Mandal Commission findings, which advocated reservation for Other Backward Communities, and the then prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

The mainstream media, led by India Today and Indian Express (under Arun Shourie), converged to the singular narrative that reservations kill efficiency in government departments and drain nation's precious resources. Moreover, they argued it was being cornered by a select section among the beneficiaries. Anyone with a differing view had no platform to express - websites, blog posts were still eons away. Their only solace were the niche publications, whose reach was very limited.

Now with Vemula's death the pendulum has swung to the opposite direction. His death has become a rallying cry to highlight the plight of Dalit students in particular and treatment of Dalits by our society in general. Many other instances of suicides by Dalit students, following harassment by classmates and professors at prestigious institutes like IIT Rorkee and AIIMS have come to light. For some Dalits it has now become a 'coming out' moment by revealing their caste, something they had kept tightly under wraps for years.  

Thankfully this time the mainstream media's bias was not as pronounced as in 1990, there is much more diversity and heterogeneity over the issue. Views favouring quota for Dalits and other backward classes are appearing in popular publications, though sometimes with a disclaimer (the views expressed are personal and not that of the publication) and there are many bloggers and independent writers concerned about the plight of Dalits.

However internet trolls against reservation quota, who were quite active in various social media forums, are now working overtime. Even before this issue broke out there was always a steady supply of jokes and memes lampooning reservations and making it appear that those who got college admission or jobs due to quota were dunces and free loaders. After Vemula's death they are now busy digging 'facts' to cast aspersions on his caste. Since his father belongs to an OBC caste and his mother an SC, they have got a toehold to play on. However the fact that Vemula got admission based on merit has taken a lot of wind out of their sails.

But surprisingly the political section that got the most exposed and discredited out of this controversy was not the right wing casteists (their regressive views were quite well known), but the Left parties whose claims of being inclusive rung hollow. Vemula was himself a SFI activist and got disillusioned and joined Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). He had wryly claimed the Leftists may have discarded religion, but not caste!!

While the Vemula struggle was hogging national headlines, Chitralekha a Dalit woman auto driver from Kannur in Kerala was waging a low profile battle by going on an indefinite strike in front of the state secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. She has been waging a lonely battle for a decade against the alleged caste and gender 'intolerance' of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers in Kannur. The CPM-affiliated Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU) workers had prevented her from plying her autorickshaw and even burnt down her vehicle.

Hence it is no wonder that Dalits feel cold shouldered by most mainstream parties, even those professing to be progressive, and float Dalit specific outfits like ASA to fight for their causes.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Lessons From Bihar Election

Cows may be worshipped in the country, but there is a limit to milking it for votes, especially when prices of various dals (an inherent part of our staple diet) refuse to scale below three digits!!

A wise man once said there are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies and statistics. Numbers buttressed by algorithms can be quite beguiling and some of our poll pundits fell for it and singed their hard earned credibility, built over the years, in minutes. If jumped the gun. Then be ready to have some crow on your menu!

Dog may be man’s best friend and probably the first animal to be domesticated. But our loyal follower always got the raw deal. It was used as an invective to shame and abuse the rivals. Familiarity they say breeds contempt.

To win elections all parties try to field ‘winnable’ candidates – those with money and muscle power, with few criminal cases thrown in at various police stations. This may cause heartburn among the sincere and dedicated party workers, but this unfortunately is part of realpolitik. Just grin and bear it.

Pakistan, our twin brother, is also seen as a place to dump those with a perceived low patriotism quotient (read non-conformism to majoritarian agenda). Thankfully it is confined to jingoistic sloganeering. The fact of the matter is that almost everybody in our country day dreams of green card!!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Beef: The New Four Letter Word

Beef just refuses to go away from the country’s political menu. It is the new four letter word that has divided the society as if it were scythed through by a super sharp cleaver.

A few decades ago in the late 1960s and early 70s a bunch of Union Ministers were derided for being part of ‘kitchen cabinet’. Those were the Indian polity’s early days of unabashed sycophancy and that too around a woman leader. In this day and age such a remark would have been considered downright sexist.

Now forget kitchen cabinet, it looks like the whole Indian politics just does not want to get out of the kitchen. It has become a place where patriotism is stirred up and cooked for public consumption. And woe betides anyone not using the ‘right’ ingredients!

The reason for this huddle in kitchen happens to be the humble cow, the inheritor of kamadhenu legacy, which is blissfully ignorant of all this hullabaloo. For this animal is more worried about the next meal as rising urbanization and dwindling grasslands have dealt a body blow to its food sources. Nowadays the daily grind consists of foraging waste bins and garbage yards for anything edible, amid plastic bags and paper packets, which it accidentally chomps in, leading to health disasters.

While it struggles to keep its emaciated body and soul together, its human masters are at each other’s throats to decide how it should die!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Dadri Syndrome: Lynch Mob At The Gates

The solemn and heartfelt manner with which the Indian Air Force corporal Mohammad Sartaj conducted himself at a TV programme despite undergoing a grave tragedy of losing his father Mohammad Akhlaq to a lynch mob, left many misty eyed. Probably that was the only take away from the infamous killing in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, where a man was killed based on beef eating rumours, to assure us that all is not lost even in this bleak moment. The India our founding fathers had visualised still lives on in some pockets.

The fact that a lynch mob can enter the kitchen of a house and attack a family for the type of food they were having provides a chilling reminder of the rising tide of hatred and communal polarisation in the society. 

The political class, the chief architects who brought things to such a pass, have once again showed that whatever be the tragedy they cannot see anything beyond electoral arithmetic and political mileage. In a way Union Minister Mahesh Sharma's statement that the incident happened due to 'misunderstanding' was unwittingly true. 

The cow vigilantes picked up a wrong household - one with hardly any blemish. None of the family members faced any criminal charges and one of them had even donned the Air Force uniform to serve the country - hence very high on deshbhakti quotient.

Moreover it later came to be known that the meat in the refrigerator was not beef as alleged. But the supporters of the lynch mob would have none of it, because for them rumour is the fuel and the medium of communication ranges from good old loudspeakers and word of mouth to new age WhatsApp. They are working overtime posting photoshopped pictures of cow remnants and other rabid campaigns in social media, which would make late Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels rest assured that at least in India his credo would last another millennium! 

Just imagine if the meat in the refrigerator was actually beef, then it would have been 'advantage' lynch mob (to use a tennis analogy). They would have gone to town saying 'justice' has been done as the killers of our 'mother' have been avenged and some favourably disposed newspaper columnists would have marshalled extreme forms of sophistry to rationalise the killing as 'spontaneous reaction' to 'hurt sentiments'. The fact that possession of beef or its consumption is not prohibited in Uttar Pradesh and Akhlaq had not broken any law would have been relegated to a footnote for the academia, edit pages or TV studios to chew on.

Or think of an even grimmer scenario of beef being found in a house where some family members have a criminal past, a la Sohrabuddin Sheikh. That would have been godsend and the lynch mob would have easily got away with their savagery. Anyone criticising the legality of the lynching would have been branded as supporters of cow killers and desh drohis fit to be exported to Pakistan. "He was anyway a criminal, then why are you speaking on his behalf" would have been the taunt, and the average IPL-fixated Indian Pappu would have nodded in agreement.

The fact that Sartaj had an air force uniform on his back, helped the family land on the positive side of 'good Muslim, bad Muslim' binary, but others may not be that lucky and hence need to be very afraid.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat